Songs of Anisha
“Speak to Me,”
by Abigail George
In moments like these: harmless but giving way
To a conservative harmony, nightly in my room
In quiet reflection, a reverent silence stirring
In the evening, a stillness harvesting survival
A purity of thought, a lifetime of taking lives
In the heat of the night, a heart-shaped bullet
Takes flight, it takes cognisance of what tragically
Came before, I am forgetful of our differences,
In the fire that sustains that life unrivalled
The mock fascination of the phases of life,
Mindful of chaos and closure, the spheres
That governs those spaces, the faint expression
Of territorial hunger and poverty around my mouth
Like the glimpse of the watery underbelly
Of the surface of a lake; a trembling, pale-faced
Crescent overhead—I seem otherworldly
Lacking substance, a vital staying power,
Shifting with the passage of time, with the dial.
I lay awake wishing you were here, but you’re not,
Imagining you’re speaking to me, recognition is there now
You’re dead to me but not to another woman.
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